After the Mockingjay
by ShiningWizard255
Summary: Katniss and Haymitch have returned to the remains of District 12 just following the events of Mockingjay and Haymitch cannot cope.  Can Katniss help him find peace?


**Disclaimer – I own nothing. All characters and depictions based on the novels by Suzanne Collins. **

**This story takes place shortly after Katniss's return to District 12 at the end of Mockingjay. **

**Katniss**

I lie awake, unable to sleep for what seems like the thousandth night in a row. Ever since the Games, the Quell, and the Revolution a good night's sleep has evaded me. Sleep is supposed to be a time of peace and healing. For me, sleep is a time for the horrors of my mind to take control, to terrify me into tremors and screams.

As I look at the ceiling through the darkness I hear a loud, strange sound like a wounded animal moaning. My breath catches in my chest. Someone is in my house. Slowly I drag myself into a sitting position. Ever since I returned to my house in the Victor's Village of what used to be District 12 I have been on perpetual edge. One should feel safe at home. However, the place where I hang my hat is now the place where instead I feel extremely vulnerable. My enemies know I am here. But I have nowhere else to go.

I rise slowly from my bed and tiptoe to my dresser in the dark. I carefully open a drawer and reach for the knife I have hidden there. I am much more effective at defending myself with a bow and arrow but I have none here. My bows and my arrows are used for hunting and are hidden in the woods just beyond District 12. I hope the knife will do.

I systematically search each and every room of my house, as I have done so many nights previously, looking for an intruder. I find none. Beginning to feel fairly confident I am alone, I begin to flip on lights so I can see a little better. No one. Nobody in the closet or hiding behind the shower curtain. At last, I am satisfied I am alone.

I am about to turn off the last light and return to bed when I hear the noise again. It's so pitiful, that sound. Whatever emitted that cry is hurting and hurting badly. I am a hunter, yes, but I am also compassionate. I don't like to see anything suffer. I still feel guilty about Buttercup, a cat whose end I contemplated all those years ago. It was necessity at the time, you see. I couldn't feed him and I would have rather him have a quick end than a painful death by hunger. My sister convinced me otherwise. And the depths of the horrors I feel when I think of all those people I was forced to kill by the Capitol makes me tremble.

Something outside my walls is in pain and needs my help, even if it's just a swift end. I sheath the knife and go to the window and raise the glass, trying to locate where the sound is coming from. Is it the woods? What used to be the Meadow? I cock my head listen hard. Where is it coming from?

I decide to go outside and investigate. I search my property and come up with nothing. It is not until I am on the side nearest my neighbor's house do I realize the moaning is coming from him, the sound escaping through an open kitchen window.

My poor, tormented mentor. Haymitch Abernathy was a tribute to the Capitol - just as I was - but twenty-four years prior. His Games were especially horrific; double the amount of tributes. Double the amount of people to kill. Haymitch won his Games by using the arena's force field to his advantage in what many considered a cunning move. The Capitol was not as impression and Haymitch was punished heavily for embarassing them. Two weeks after returning from the the 50th Hunger Games, the Capitol had everyone that meant anything to Haymitch annihilated.

Haymitch was never quite right after becoming a Victor and the subsequent death of his family and friends. He turned to drinking very heavily to cope with his demons. Most of the time my mentor was either too drunk to function or too hungover to care. His house is a disaster. He was there for me during the Games, though. Peeta too. We wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for Haymitch's assistance, and for that I feel I owe him.

From his cries I can tell something isn't right. Carefully, to avoid detection, I pull myself into his open window. I am in his kitchen, amid the empty containers, dirty dishes, and various other pieces of garbage. I try not to wrinkle my nose and focus instead on the sound. It seems to be coming from upstairs. With one hand on my knife I take the steps to the second floor at a crawling pace, ever on my guard.

A door is closed and the sound seems to be coming from inside that room. His bedroom, I think. I pause for a moment, not sure how to proceed. "Haymitch?" I finally whisper. "Haymitch, it's me. Katniss." When my only response is a soft whimper, I decide to open the door.

I throw the door open. The room appears empty, devoid of all life except for the sleeping form of my mentor. He's curled up in the fetal position, clutching a knife of his own. I feel a sad half-smile come to my lips. My poor mentor always sleeps with a knife.

He thrashes suddenly, crying out in terror. He startles me, and I jump. "A nightmare," I realize. And I feel for him. I, and Peeta, are plagued by the nightmares too.

I need to wake him. Not only to help him escape the tortures in his head but to stop him from accidentally hurting himself. Cautiously I approach his bed, wary of the knife. "Haymitch?" I repeat his name over and over in a soft, soothing voice. "Come on now. Wake up. It will be ok." But he doesn't hear me.

I am not sure what to do. Whatever he is dreaming of is clearly terrifying him. The screams, the cries, that pitiful moan. "Oh Haymitch," I think to myself. "What have they done to you?"

Cautiously I sit on the edge of his bed. I try to pry the knife from his hand for both of our safety. He resists but I get the knife away. He's still sleeping. I stare at him, considering how to proceed. I take his hand but that does nothing. I rub his arms and back reassuringly, and massage the stiff muscles of his shoulders. Again, nothing. He's too far gone, lost in some miserable dreamland.

Finally, I decide I need to take drastic action to wake him. I go to his bathroom, nearly tripping over empty wine bottles. I get an idea. I fill one of the bottles with cold water and take it to his room, where he's screaming. I turn the bottle over and let the water empty onto his head.

He wakes at once, sitting up, sputtering. I turn on his light and he's looking at me through bleary, bloodshot eyes in confusion. He's shaking like a leaf. "Katniss?" he ask, his voice thick with sleep and fear. "What are you doing here?"

"I can hear you from my house, Haymitch." I reply. "I had to wake you."

He stares at me for a few beats before burying his face in his hands. I think he's just embarrassed, as if he's reached a new low and doesn't want me to see, until I hear a sob. My mentor is crying.

My heart aches for him because I know how it feels. To avoid sleep until you cannot avoid it any longer, only to finally close your eyes and see nothing but demons, pain, and death. To scream all night in sheer terror. I go to him at once, hugging him, saying soothing things to quiet him. Haymitch is like a child in my arms, sobbing, clutching at me. "I can't sleep, Katniss," he says through his tears in an angry voice. I look into his pained grey eyes. "I can never sleep."

"I know," I said softly. "I can't either."

"Every time, I see them. The children. The children I killed," he says bitterly. "My family. I'm a monster."

"You're not a monster. Snow was a monster. You were just a piece in his Games," I reassure him.

"Like you," he says.

"Like me," I echo. "And Peeta."

"What do we do?" he says tearfully.

"I don't know," I admit. I think back to a time when our roles were reversed and I had asked Haymitch if it ever got any easier. "No," was his blunt reply.

In the end, we don't figure out how to stop the nightmares that night. I stay with Haymitch until he falls back to sleep but the second I go to leave, a new nightmare starts. I drench him again, and he's a wreck. His body needs sleep badly. He's so tired, his head is pounding, his stomach aching. And worse, he's crying again. Frustrated, shameful tears. He's so mad at himself, but he can't help himself either.

I have an idea. I kick off the shoes I had slipped on and slide into bed next to him. He looks at me through his tears in a strange way. I settle myself into a comfortable position lying in his blankets, my head resting on a pillow. I open my arms to him. "Come here," I say. He hesitates, but settles into my arms, his head on my shoulder, sniffling every so often.

I brush some of his longish dark hair away from his face. "You're safe," I whisper, kissing his forehead. "I'm not going anywhere."

Eventually we both fall asleep. And for the first time in a long time, neither of us has a nightmare.


End file.
